Taming the Wild

Today's Blog Hoppin topic day 4 is Taming the Wild- management. This is critical to teaching. No matter how wonderful your classroom looks or how fantastic your lesson is, you have to have good management. Here are just some of my ideas to 'tame the wild':

1. EXPECTATIONS! EXPECTATIONS! EXPECTATIONS!

I spend several weeks at the beginning of the year setting up my classroom community. My kiddos need to know the boundaries and what I expect out of them. How can you reward or discipline if they don't know what you expect from them.

2. When to Praise and when not to.

I have lived by this quote my entire teaching career as well as with my own children. Vince Lombardi used the word 'criticize' instead of 'reprove'. I think reprove is a little more gentle and loving than criticize. No one wants to be embarrassed in front of their peers.

3. Pick your battles.

I teach 6-7 years old children. They WILL NOT always obey, be nice, or do what they should. I CANNOT try to correct every little thing they do wrong. Decide what is the most important and work on that. 

4. My management system.

I've blogged about it before. I try to use LOTS of praise and rewards but need consequences too. I use 'Caught Ya' and 'Stop and Thinks'. You can read my post about my system HERE.

DISCLAIMER

These are the things that have worked for me MOST of the time. Each child is unique and what works for one doesn't work for another. I work closely with parents and try to find the best for the child. 

But the best thing of all is to just LOVE each child for who they are!

Wonderful things happen when a child KNOWS they are loved.

Back-To-School Rules & Procedures with Alex Alligator GIVEAWAY

I am so EXCITED about my newest packet! I haven't been able to sleep the last two nights thinking about it. I finally got up this morning at 3:00 AM and finished it.YAHOO! Sometimes the ideas just flow like water and other times I can't think of a darn thing.

This packet is for the beginning of the year when you're teaching all the rules and procedures. I generally talk about a lot of things on that first day. My kids give me that 'deer in the headlight' look and I know it's not sinking in. This is a cute little story about Alex Alligator who goes to school and the students have to teach HIM the rules.

You can print the story pages, bind it, and make it into a book. I like to discuss the good and bad choices Alex makes along the way. Then, at the end of the book the student teach Alex the school rules. I like to use the snipping tool on my computer to take a picture of each page. Then drag it into my Smart board software to make slides for each page of the story. Then write on the pages the student's responses to what they will teach Alex. You could also do this with a document camera. There is a writing page for the rules we'll teach him and I turn that into a class book.

There is a class sort with situations to discuss if Alex should make a good or bad choice. I also included a Follow the Path game with questions about your own classroom and school procedures. Like- What is your teacher's name? What do you do if you need to throw-up? (I had that happen once on the 1st day of school YUCKY!). It's a fun little game to play with the whole class. This is also fun to review again in January when the kiddos have forgotten everything :)

There are also paper bracelet they can make to remind them to make good choices and a darling, very simple craftivity called the I CAN Chain. It has a review of some of the rules.

 And because I'm soooo tried from being up since 3 AM and I'm soooo excited to have the packet done and I'm going in to start on my classroom today- I thought I'd have a little GIVEAWAY!

Just comment on this post before tomorrow (TUESDAY) at NOON (Mountain Time). Be sure to leave your email address. And I'll randomly select 3 winners by the good ole' Random Generator. I'll send the 3 lucky winners my new Alex Alligator Packet! Good Luck!

The winners are Kris, Teresa, and Lisa! 

Congrats and thanks everyone for the great comments. I appreciate everyone who reads my blog!

P.S. Don't forget to follow me on Facebook HERE!

Snowball Fight!

I think I will try just about anything to motivate my class to be good this year. I have a difficult class and I am doing everything I can think of. I got a great idea last week and it worked pretty well- A SNOWBALL FIGHT! If your school is like ours then snowballs are against the rules. They can be dangerous. But what about paper snowballs? During the week, at the end of each day, we review what we've been working on. So this week, when someone could give me the right answer, a good example, or spell a word right, they got a paper snowball to throw in the trash bin. They LOVED it!

My kids thought is was lots of fun and tried hard to answer and win a snowball. So then I decided to bribed them for the whole week. If they could be really good all week long, we would have a snowball fight on Friday. Now let's just say that they were not perfect. But they really tried hard. So at the end of the day on Friday, (it had to be the very, very last 5 minutes of the day otherwise, well you know why) I gave everyone 3 snowballs (I used scrap piece of paper, left over worksheets etc.) and told them it was a game to see who could defend their 'fort' (table). I set the timer and said go.

The team with the least amount of snowball at the end was the WINNER! But we all were winners because it was soooo much fun.
Now my only hope is it will carry over to next week. We'll try it again and see if it will help them be good for another week. Just one day, one week at a time. That's how I'm getting through the year!
I hope everyone is having a great weekend!

Main Idea and Details Freebie & Management

This summer in one of my workshops, I heard this great idea for teaching main idea and details. So I came home and wrote it up and found pictures for it. I would love to give credit to whomever came up with this idea but I don't know who you are. But thanks for sharing it at our workshop. Let me know if this is yours.

There are 5 pages in all. You can download it by clicking HERE

The graphics are from KPM Doodles and Scrappin Doodles.

On another topic, I read a great post HERE over on Nikki Sabiston's blog about management. She has a GREAT blog. You'll want to check it out. 

She talks about her views on behavior charts and why she'll never use them again. I know a lot of teachers use them but please read her post and ponder what she says. Nikki has some very valid statements which I agree with whole heartily. I have used several methods of management in my classrooms. Some were by my own choosing and others by administration's. Some worked and many failed. I've read research and found what works for me and a behavior chart is NOT one of them. Like Nikki, my own children have helped me see what works best for kids. My kids advised me along the way and I'm very grateful for them.

In my classroom, I have more success with rewarding the positive with a little ticket called a 'caught ya'. I give them whenever I see good behavior or want to reward a child for great work. Then we have a drawing every Monday for prizes out of the prize basket. Then once a month the school picks a 'caught ya' winner from each class, announces the names over the PA and gives a prize. On the flip side, I give 'Stop & Thinks' for students who can't follow the rules. It's simply a time out for 5 minutes to think about what they did and how they can improve. This allows me as a teacher to work with students who have a harder time with behavior like my ADHD or autistic kids. If the behavior is severe then they are given a 'Stop & Go' where the child is taken to another classroom or the office, a note and phone call to the parent is given. In first grade the 'Stop & Go' lasts for 15 minutes where the child does the work he/she is missing in class. If a child gets 3 'Stop & Go' then a conference is held with parents, teacher, student, and administrator to form a plan to change behavior. I have never had to have a conference yet and hope I never do. This is a great way to help kids change their behavior and reward them for being great kids.

Sorry for such a long post. What do you do for management? I'd LOVE to hear.

Behavior Bingo

The other day I found a great idea on Camille's blog over on Fun For First. Please go check it out. She found a cute idea on pinterest called Behavior Bingo. I forgot to grab my copy of her cute freebie so I was unprepared but you can if you go to her blog and get it. Today my kiddos were awful!! It was raining, we had an inside day, only 8 days of school left, yada, yada, yada, you get the picture! In desperation, I quickly threw a Behavior Bingo board together (I don't have any cute graphic or even a colored printer at school). I had my aide laminate it and tried it.  Mine is not as cute as Camille's or the one on pinterest but I gotta say "IT WORKED"!!!

Every time I catch one of my firsties being good, I give them the silent signal and they get to sign their name with a visa-visa pen in a square on the game board. Our silent signal is the letter 'b' in sign language. As you can see some of the kiddo's names are there more than once. They were the good ones! At the end of the day, I roll the wooden cubes to determine the winners! One die has B-I-N-G-O and roll again. The other die has 1-2-3-4-5 and roll again. So if I roll B-2, all the kids whose names are in that square win a prize from my prize basket. They were really excited. Then I bribed my little darlings some more and told them if they were SUPER good and we got tons of names on the board, I would roll the colored die. It's another die with the words purple-pink-yellow-blue-orange and roll again on it. Then everyone whose name is on that color wins! The next morning I wipe all the names off and we start again. THANK YOU Camille and whomever came up with this idea on pinterest! It's saving me from pulling my hair out these last few days!
I hope everyone has a fantastic weekend!
Thanks for stopping by.

Rudolph's Nose

Rudolph's Nose
We all know the kiddos are going to be higher than kites for the next 3 weeks. Here is a holiday behavior management activity I do. I'm not big on mass reward or mass punishment but this seems to work at this time of year and the firsties love it.

I put a picture of the North Pole on one side of my room with a big red balloon taped to it. Inside the balloon is a slip of paper with a prize listed on it. Something like extra recess, a cane candy etc. (just little things the kids go crazy for). Then I tie a string from the North Pole and stretch it clear across the room to the opposite wall. I punch a hole in a picture of Rudolph and thread him on the string. He starts on the opposite wall. The object is to get Rudolph to his nose at the North Pole to pop the balloon and win the secret prize. Rudolph can only move when the kiddos are on their best behavior. Then he takes giant leaps in the air along the string. Sometimes he has to move backwards if the firsties are being naught. Rudolph generally makes it to his nose every 2-3 days. Then I replace the balloon with a new one and a new prize. This has really helped with behavior on those hard to handle days just before the holiday.
Math Station Find
I just found 2 great math activities to add to my math stations. They are from Heather over on her blog Differentiation Station. A cute one for practicing even and odd. Click on her name above to head over and pick up your copy!

And another one for subtraction fact practice. Thanks Heather for sharing freebies!

I hope you can use something you've found here today. I'd love to hear from you! 

Sharing

Having 30 students this year is killing me!!! I've taught 28 for the last few years but for some reason just 2 more is putting me over the edge. I really shouldn't complain because two of the teachers on my team have 32. Budget cuts are to blame. We have a saying in UTAH "Stack em' deep and teach em' cheap". Anyway, I've had a hard time remembering who's turn it is to share at the end of my reader's workshop. I used to just pick who I really wanted or felt I needed to hear from by putting a "share bear" (beany baby bears) on their desk at the beginning of reading. But a few years ago, I had an autistic child in my room and she would have a 'melt down' if she didn't get to share EVERY DAY. So I started writing on the board who got to share that day and she started to understand if her name wasn't there she had to wait and take her turn. This year with so many kids, I want to make sure I hear from every kid every week. So I made  little charts. Each child is assigned a day, that way I can schedule the kids that are gone to speech a day they are here for sharing time and not miss them. It is working great. I even added journal share time. So the kiddos know they will share their journal during writing time and a book during reading. Yeah!

Here are my little charts. The clipart, of course, is from DJ Inkers, my favorite! Click on the picture for a PDF.

Here I Go!

Here I go at my first attempt at blogging. I've been an avid blog reader for years and love reading other teachers blogs. I've gotten so many great ideas to help my teaching. So I guess it's time to give back.

I've been in the business of teaching for so many years. But my philosophy has always been to not get set in my ways. I am constantly learning and trying new things. I get really bored if I don't. I like to create on my computer new ways for teaching some of the old and new ideas.

I have had numerous friends share their ideas with me over the years. I couldn't have done it without them. And now I'd like to share with you some of the things I have tweeted to fit my style or ideas of my own. We are all in this together- the art of teaching these precious little children. So help yourself and enjoy the art of teaching!

Each week my kiddos choose a book nook. I have 14 places around the room with pillows or chairs where they can read during reader's workshop. I write their name on the tag and then laminate it. I put some Velcro on the back and they are ready to go. Here is the tag I use.